


valuable cargo

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Cousy In Space, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, POV Phil Coulson, Rescue Missions, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 03:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11866038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Coulson thinks his fate is sealed.Writtel for the Cousy In Space event at johnsonandcoulson.com (prompt: "space pirates")





	valuable cargo

The people transporting him knew that if there was a chance for Coulson to escape (or at least try to) it would be during this trip, so they have doubled the security measures. Literally - they have sent _two_ men to secure his journey. They didn’t need to take away his left hand, though, because the prison had already disabled it in a way that’s only dead weight for Coulson now.

By the time they get to the ship that will take him to his next (and apparently final) incarceration the two men have it down to a science, manhandling Coulson in and out of shuttles, in and out of dark rooms, showing his papers at the multiple control points, all in perfect sync, one hand at each of Coulson’s arms, gripping him painfully.

When Coulson stumbles into the bright and clean cabin he is not expecting his journey to be shared with so many strangers, of so many alien species seemingly on a leisure trip. He also isn’t expecting a crew of stewards and stewardesses to greet him cheerfully at the door, like he was a customer and not a criminal.

“The penal colony is the third stop in our trip,” one of them informs him with a hollow smile. “It will take us sixty-four minutes to arrive. Please enjoy the beautiful sights, if we’re lucky we might see an asteroid shower as we cross Bri and her moons.”

“ _Lucky_ ,” Coulson repeats between his teeth.

The last time he was asked to enjoy the sights on a trip things got ugly very quickly, he remembers.

This one feels a lot like a regular commercial flight from Earth, or the equivalent in spaceship, and the two men at his sides look like the marshals transporting a prisoner at the back of the plane, Coulson has seen this in movies. They shove him across the aisle and towards the back of the craft. That’s like in the movies too. 

“What if I have to use the toilet? My bladder isn’t what it used to be...” Coulson asks, gesturing at his hands, each cuffed to a different jailer.

His guards don’t answer. Coulson didn’t expect them to. He just wanted to make the joke, fit the script of that blockbuster. Nick Cage should be about to appear any second, right?

Coulson settles into his seat, watching the other passengers board the ship, some of them throwing a curious glance at him, but mostly undisturbed by his presence. It must be a common thing, he concludes, for prisoners to be transported alongside civilians in this type of journeys.

A lot of the aliens in here look like humans, or close enough. Then again Coulson had mistaken Thor for a human when he first met him. But some of them look nothing like humans, they’re very obviously alien, and Coulson is hit with a familiar wave of wonder (if that’s not a contradiction) - that even in his current terrible predicament part of him is happy to be out here, seeing all these things he only dreamed about when he was a kid. He spent decades trying to hone the skill of looking unimpressed at all the strange things he encountered as a SHIELD agent, but he couldn’t really push it all down, not completely. 

There are couples on vacation, and businessmen, or businessaliens, in the cabin.

Coulson sighs when the ship starts up; a little over an hour and he’ll be back in a cell. Or worse. Even if he could come up with a plan to cut off his handcuffs and somehow reduce his bodyguards, then… what? There’s only empty space out there. He refuses to give up, but he can’t waste the little strength he has on suicide plans.

After fifteen minutes or so of Coulson running scenarios in his head something happens. Something he hasn’t planned for.

The spacecraft, rather unexpectedly - judging by the faces of the cabin crew - loses speed and finally stops. “Stopping” for a spaceship is a peculiar thing, and Coulson wishes he knew more about how the vacuum of space works. Stopping means drifting, probably. It doesn’t exactly mean a chance for him to escape, but at least it’s a suprise.

“Don’t get any ideas,” one of his guards tells him, the first words they’ve ever directed at him.

Coulson makes a “who? me?” gesture of innocence, while the other goon demands to know the situation from one of the stewards. 

“A little software anomaly,” the humanoid replies, with a tireless smile. “Nothing to worry about, please.”

A software anomaly? That doesn’t sound like “nothing to worry about”, Coulson thinks. Again he studies the faces of the crew, running towards each other, communicating scraps of information to each other. It seems like they don’t quite know what has come over their ship.

Then there spacecraft rattles, like it’s being shaken from outside by some invisible hand. And then there’s a creaking sound through the communications system. And then music starts.

Yes, music.

It sounds like some sort of Wagnerian piece, though Coulson can’t be sure. It sounds grand and menacing. The effect is comical rather than chilling. Like whoever is doing this has a good sense of humor.

“Please remain in your seats,” a computerized voice blasts over the music. “This will only take a few moments.”

Confused passengers and crew look at each other. Someone lets out a muffled scream, pointing somewhere outside the ship as the source of their terror.

Coulson’s guards look out of the ship’s windows, which force him to look too. There’s another ship, a smaller shuttle, right besides the commercial spacecraft, and a sealed corridor has just been attached between the two. A very advanced, very cosmic way of “boarding” another ship, as if this was a pirate attack.

Well, Coulson thinks, who knows.

It could be a terrorist attack but somehow he has the feeling that’s not it - something about the music, the message on the PA system, it feels like something else.

“Please, remain calm, there’s nothing to worry about,” one of the stewards is saying again, with the same hollow smile. But no sooner the words leave his lips the door to the cabin is flung open by some sort of explosive. 

There’s six of them, and a seventh one who quickly slips into the pilots’ cabin, which is supposed to be impenetrable (Coulson thought about that when he was calculating his chances out here) but the pirates seem to have some very handy gadget to crack the panel. 

The other six spread among the passengers, looking for something, or someone. Before Coulson’s bodyguards can act one of them releases some sort of gas bomb along the aisle. White smoke rises from the floor. Coulson holds his breath, having caught the development, but the same can’t be said for the other passengers, or the crew. There’s a symphony of coughs echoing through the cabin, and the gas works before panic has time to set in. 

His eyes begin to sting painfully, but Coulson still has time to watch as the pirates - that’s what they are, right? _space pirates_ \- continue their search with hurried movements, constantly checking something in their pads as they go. The assailants have masks over their faces, but judging by the frames most of them are definitely not human. Coulson can see scales on one of them, bright orange scales.

“There he is!” one of them shouts, pointing exactly towards Coulson’s row.

A couple of them move quickly, while the others make sure no one in the cabin is unaffected by the gas and wanting to be a hero.

“Hold this to your mouth,” one of the attackers tells Coulson when they reach his side. The one with scales. He doesn’t hesitate much, because whatever this new threat might be, it can’t be worse than being shipped to another prison. He takes the piece of fabric from the alien’s hand.

The cloth is soaked in some liquid, Coulson breathes in and immediately his mind is clearer, free from the effects of the gas. He looks around, the rest of the passengers are losing consciousness, completely, one by one.

The ship shakes for a moment, as if it had encountered some kind of turbulence. Which makes no sense. 

“The Captain?” one of the hijackers says.

“The pilot must have had a gas mask on,” another one - one short and chubby with a wonderful soprano voice - replies, shaking her head.

“Hurry!” someone else shouts, a warning directed at the alien in charge of freeing Coulson.

The scaly creature nods and takes out a weapon, a laser cutter with which they pry Coulson’s handcuffs open.

“Thanks but-”

“Shut up,” the alien roars, and grabs Coulson by the arm, being quite forceful when helping him stand up and step over one of his jailers and onto the cabin aisle.

“Cargo secured,” another pirate says over their comms piece.

_Cargo_?

 

+

 

The pirates - because it’s finally obvious this is what they are, from their attire and their behavior - drag Coulson along a hallway communicating the passenger ship and a small shuttle.

He is used to this part, being manhandled in and out of ships. But at least now there’s the novelty of not knowing who the hell is manhandling him, or what awaits on his new destination. One step at a time, Coulson tells himself, because at least now he’s not going to jail.

“Hey,” he protests when one of the aliens throws him against the wall of the shuttle, carelessly, like he’s just discarding a package, and Coulson lands on his shoulder.

“Careful,” another of the masked individuals is saying. “She told us not to rough him up.”

She?

Another pirate snickers. “Yeah,” they say. “He’s _valuable cargo_.”

The rest of the crew joins in the joke, chuckling.

As much as he appreciates having been freed from his jailers Coulson is about to open his mouth and finally ask what the hell is going on, but then the door to the shuttle opens again and the seventh pirate (the one who went into the pilot’s cabin, judging by their frame, a seemingly human frame too) arrives at the scene. The mood in the little compartment changes, and everybody straightens their posture and stops chuckling. They also stop crowding Coulson.

“Okay, Bari, I’ve disengaged the pod. Take us home,” that seventh person says, with a tone that shows they’re clearly in command here.

“Aye, aye.”

There’s a rush of activity in the small shuttle and Coulson feels himself almost losing balance. Between the bodies of the pirates he can take a peek at the window - they are leaving the transporter, and with it Coulson’s guards, behind. He’s not sure what lies _ahead_ for him, but at least there’s that.

“Sorry, the pilot was armed and I got held up,” this new space pirate say, the one he guesses is the Captain of the crew, but they are saying the words directly at Coulson, looking at him. There’s something familiar about the voice, but it’s distorted by the mask. Coulson might be imagining things, though - the effects of the gas still lingering.

Coulson stares at them in confusion.

“Oh, right, sorry,” the Captain says, and quickly removes their mask.

“ _Daisy_?”

He blinks. Now he truly is imagining things. But no, here she is in front of him, months after they were separated. She is in true space pirate garb, a combination of rugged leathery stuff over her shoulders, and scary-looking tech at her holster. Her hair is short, almost like a soldier’s, and she looks thinner than he remembered, but healthy. Unharmed. Coulson doesn’t know how to react, what to do with his hands and his feelings.

Daisy steps closer, wrapping her fingers around his shoulder with emotion, digging, like she is about to pull him into a hug but something is stopping her. Maybe it’s the company, the lack of space or the lack of privacy. Coulson fights hard against the urge to embrace her anyway, but he doesn’t know the situation here, he doesn’t want to compromise her position in anyway. Daisy tilts her head, such a familiar gesture it stops Coulson’s heartbeat for a moment.

“Found you,” she breathes in a low voice, and gives him a smile that’s almost as good as a hug.

 

+

 

He resents they don’t have the chance to be alone immediately. On the mess hall Daisy is reviewing plans while eating. She’s found a way to get them back to Earth, back to the team. But it involves take control of a heavily guarded transportation tower in a nearby planet. another hurdle. Coulson feels like he’s in a videogame now. But he’s happy to be here, happy to be watching Daisy wolf down what looks like some alien version of a meat pie. Happy is not the word though; more like tasting a sip water after thinking you were already dead from thirst.

He looks around, everybody pretty much minding their own business yet throwing curious glances at Daisy and him from time to time. The place is cleaner than you would expect from pirates but still there’s a homemade quality about it, as if the ship had been fabricated out of different bits and bolts and nothing quite matches.

“So space pirates,” Coulson says, unable to stop smiling at her. “And they call you _Captain_. There has to be a good story there.”

Daisy looks away for a moment, too modest.

“Well, yeah, I had to find a way to break you out,” she replies, as if it were just simple logic, becoming a space pirate captain just to rescue him. She glances at his left hand, uselessly resting on his lap. “Our mechanic is good, she might be able to fix that.”

“It’s fine, it’s not a priority,” he tells her. He takes another look at her, remembering how they parted ways. “Are you okay?”

She nods. “Turns out escaping from the Kree was a lot easier than finding a way to rescue you.”

Coulson realizes he hasn’t properly thanked her for that. Two hours ago his fate was sealed, he was both handcuffed and hopeless.

Daisy looks around, explaining a bit better.

“Apparently space piracy was going the way of the dodo in this side of the galaxy thanks to this new security feature in commercial flights - space flights,” she says, looking excited about the idea of there being _space_ flights. Coulson can understand. “It stopped pirates from taking over other ships’ computers, to board them. Some sort of unbreakable code.”

“I take it it wasn’t that unbreakable?” Coulson guesses. 

Daisy smirks, looking a bit smug. “Not that unbreakable, no.”

No wonder she got made Captain.

“Thank you for coming to rescue me,” Coulson tells her. “Thank you for getting a band of space pirates to rescue me.”

She smiles, warmly. He resents himself for having somehow forgotten how good that smile is, in just a couple of months.

“Hey, you once boarded your own plane to rescue me from Ward, so, this-” she shrugs, gesturing at the crew. “This is nothing.”

Coulson chuckles at such a ridiculous comparison.

Daisy reaches across the table and grabs his hand, pressing her thumb into the heel. He knows she is not normally a physically demonstrative person - unless under duress - and there’s something of _making-sure-you’re-really-here_ in the gesture. Coulson is happy to reassure her that he is, indeed here, and to reassure himself in the process; he turns his hands upwards and wraps his fingers around hers.

Some noise - laughter from crew members, clutter of dishes and glasses, the humming of the ship, Coulson is not sure - interrupts the moment and Daisy takes her hand from under his, but takes a further moment to pat his knuckle, as if reluctant to let go yet. Coulson gets it, he’s also very much not sure how he’s lucky enough to be here in front her, and wants the assurance of her touch, or maybe he’s just realizing they should have held each other’s hand a lot more in the past, given how often they are separated and pulled apart by some kind of twisted force that he doesn’t want to call fate.

Daisy clears her throat and her expression softens into something easier.

“Come on, let’s get you a hot shower and some clean clothes,” she says.

 

+

 

The view is similar - of course it’s not, because he doesn’t know enough of these stars to tell the difference, they are just stars, and he’s just in space. But it does feel like a replica of the view from his cell, all those weeks.

But it’s different in one vital aspect.

He’s not alone.

“You don’t really get over it, do you,” Daisy says in wonder, coming from behind, looking at the same stars, and sitting on the bunk, by his side.

“No, you don’t,” he agrees, his voice full of amazement - except this time it’s not just for the stars. “Part of me is sad we’re going back to Earth. Not sure I’ll get to see this view ever again.”

“We’re still not back home,” Daisy points out, and it sounds like… something. Something charged and new that Coulson can’t exactly define. “We have to take that tower. It won’t be easy, it’s a tough fight.”

“We’re used to tough fights,” he replies.

“That’s true.”

“You’ll get us home,” Coulson assures her.

Daisy nods, but with that humble expression of hers. It’s funny, how he feels a bit like all those years under Fury, when no matter how bad things got he felt safe, because he knew Fury would come up with something.

Coulson tugs at one of his sleeves. He’s grateful to be out of the suit given to him in prison for the trip but these (semi-clean) clothes he’s borrowed are a bit too big. He wonders if they are alien. His hand is no longer a dead weight, thanks to a very clever mechanic from an alien species without eyes or nose and with extra big mouth and ears; even though he hasn’t recovered all the prosthetic’s functions. He hopes it’s enough, enough to be useful in the fight.

He takes another look at the configuration of the room. It’s obvious the bunk has been moved so that one can look at the stars from bed. Or so that the stars are watching over one while asleep.

“These are your quarters?” he asks.

Daisy tenses up.

“I have an extra cot for you. It’s just for a night,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.”

“The crew…” she gestures, in a way that puts together something Coulson already suspected.

“I’m _valuable cargo_.”

“You are,” Daisy says. “But it would have been hard to explain otherwise, so I lied. It would have been hard to explain…”

She struggles to find the words.

“Us?” Coulson offers.

Daisy nods. “Yeah. It would have been hard to explain us.”

That’s an understatement, Coulson thinks. He’s never really tried. Never dared to. It feels cowardice to admit that, here, among strange stars, after Daisy risked so much to get to him. To get back to him.

He watches her stretch her legs, and little by little the tension disappears from her shoulders. Maybe she thought Coulson would be angry at her little ruse. That’s absurd, he’s actually a little flattered that the crew bought the story, that they thought their Captain could ever...

“It is a beautiful view,” she says, looking out at the stars once more.

“Yes, it is,” Coulson replies.

She turns towards him, catching that he was looking at her when he said those words. Coulson made no effort not to get caught.

They look at each other - a moment of recognition, a moment of total absence of doubt. He’s never had that. All his life he’s had doubts. Not about this.

Daisy kisses him and he kisses Daisy. Both things at once. They kiss. It’s like tasting starlight.

Cheeks flushed, Daisy hides her face afterwards.

“Sorry, I thought-” Coulson starts to pull away.

Her hand on the crook of his elbow. Daisy shakes her head. She looks embarrassed, taken aback by the intensity of her feelings. Coulson thinks it’s a bit endearing - the captain of a crew of space pirates, the superhero with powers which could tear continents apart. Looking this shy. For him. Coulson takes her face in his hands, pulling her towards him. 

Daisy sighs against his shoulder, looking like she’s someone who has come back from a very long journey, and tired, finally rests.

He kisses the top of her head, “Found you,” he tells her.


End file.
